


Y A H.

by redhouseboys



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Familial Relationships, Fluff, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MY BEAUTIFUL BABY BOY, M/M, Mostly Fluff, Post S4, this is angsty at first but i promise it ends sweetly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:33:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12464421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redhouseboys/pseuds/redhouseboys
Summary: Love.It is your least favorite word. For so long, it has been blood; bitter on your tongue, salt and copper. It fumbles when it falls from your lips, so you keep the word sucked in, keep it folded in the dusted pages of your mind, keep it hidden.Drabble #1 for Keith's Bday Week: Friends/Family!





	Y A H.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello! This is my drabble for day one of Keith’s bday week! (Yes, it is not yet midnight here, I am getting this out just before okay it still counts.) The theme is Friends/Family! This is sad at first but I promise it has a purpose, and it ends very sweetly, don’t worry! 
> 
> ALL RELATIONSHIPS IN THIS ARE FAMILIAL/PLATONIC ASIDE FROM KLANCE. pls don't be gross

**01\. Katie.**

She usually comes to mind at what would be 4am. 

The twilight is deep, a caressing touch that cradles you both. There is tranquility in the solitude, and this is one thing you and her both have in common—an inherent introversion, the desperate ache for quiet after the cacophony of living.

You had always found value in your loneliness, but it is when you would wander the halls, fighting to clear your head, that you would stumble upon her, holed up in the common room in front of a slew of fluorescent screens. They illuminate her hazel eyes and she is a glow of intuitiveness, a star pulsing in the otherwise desolate night.

These nights, you would simply sit in the same room as her and occupy space together, not saying anything, but reveling in the surprising quaintness of each other’s silent company. She would type away at her screen, making the occasional hum of curiosity, and you would watch, the dull clack clack clack of her fingers flying across the keys oddly calming. Sometimes, you would bring a book, other times you would just sit and let yourself feel.

There were nights when one (or both) of you were far too weary, where battles would stretch you thin and leave your bones out to dry on a precarious thread. There were nights when the movement of her fingers would slow, and slow, and slow, until you would realize she was crying. There were nights where you would scoot just a little bit closer, give her a gentle smile, and let her cry. Sometimes she would reach for your hand, and you found, despite your shared aversion to physical contact, that you didn’t quite mind the way her small fingers would squeeze, tight, as if desperate for an anchoring force.

Words rarely ever passed between you both. If they did, they would be lighthearted—an hour long conversation about conspiracy theories, ghost stories. Or nights spent deconstructing the Galaxy Garrison, pulling apart its every thread because both of you knew it was not an institution to be trusted. You both understood what it was like to lose family to them.

So, when she comes to mind, it is usually the alien equivalent of 4am. This is the hour when her absence is gut-wrenching, when you hear phantom fingers whizzing across keys and feel yourself deflate as you realize it is not real, that she is not there.

You no longer have a silent companion for the twilight.

And you hope, curled up on a bed much too large for you, that back at the castle ship, she has found another midnight friend, someone to sit with her and let her cry when the nights get too hard.

 

**02\. Allura.**

You know a girl so startlingly bright that when she is gone, it is almost like you are blind.

The hallways are darker now. At times, space seems devoid of all light because you know she carries every star with her, and now that she is so far from you—she’s taken them all, and you are left staring blankly at nothing but cold, dark concavity.

Your friendship was more gradual than the others. There was trust, then (well-warranted) distrust, strain, until mutual understanding and quiet support blossomed between you and your tremendous respect for her came to be something more like your least favorite word. Love. If her life were on the line, you know that in a heartbeat you would die for her. She is too important to lose—not just to the universe. To you.

You never had a sister, never had any siblings, but if you did you’d like to imagine she’d be someone like Allura, someone confident and strong, someone who could carry the entire universe on her shoulders and still smile. Someone who found joy and hope in the smallest and quietest of places. Someone who could persuade anyone, console any tattered heart because she knew what it was like to feel broken, too.

There had been one night with her you would never forget. One you still think of when it seems too dark to be daytime. It was the night after King Alfor’s AI was disabled, his memories filtering into stardust.

You’d approached her, awkward and uneasy, wanting to help but not knowing how. Until you’d, not-so-eloquently, said, “I lost my dad too.”

Then you’d sat down beside her and listened to her, listened to her recount every fond memory, watched her eyes light up as she spoke of dances and meadows and starlight. And you’d thought then that you were glad you knew her, hit with the enormity of the realization that the entire Universe would crumble if this girl—this girl whose moon-dust eyes were full of youth—did not exist.

And it is okay, you think now, despite how much you miss her. The world is okay, as long as she is still alive. 

03\. Coran.

You often wish you’d spoken to him more.

You never spent enough time with him, so the glimpses you caught of the man behind the bumbling cheeriness were few and far between. But when you did see them, you learned to love. (God, there was that word again).

An incredibly wise man, a man who knew how to love and cherish despite all that he’d lost. You’d seen the way he’d comfort Lance, speak of homesickness together. Sometimes you’d be there, too, thinking of your desert shack and feeling oddly misplaced. Missing beating sun and hard dirt beneath your feet. Missing quiet.

There were times when you’d be passing through the halls and would stumble upon him, working maintenance on some part of the ship or another, humming happily to himself. And your soul would fill with an unsurmountable sense of admiration, because the fact that there was still music in a heart so used to suffering was astounding to you.

You wished, then, that you knew how to sing, so you could sing along with him.

You wish that now, too. Imagining always the gentle tunes he’d hum as you drift into fitful sleep.

 

**04\. Hunk.**

Nobody really laughed in the Blade of Marmora.

Things here were grave and quiet, small and indefinable. For a long while, you couldn’t quite place what made everything so off-kilter, but you realized then that so much of the happiness in your heart belonged to Hunk.

Hunk was laughter. Hunk was a fresh breath of sun and earth in the cold unknown of space.

Hunk was level-headedness and an anger that you could understand. Hunk was a smile and a song when your stomach felt too empty. Hunk was a type of beauty you couldn’t really put a name too.

(He still is. You’re just so far away.)

You remember every moment you spent with him with brightness, with startling clarity. Conversations about Hunk’s favorite things—chemistry, family, the satisfaction that came with building something from scratch. Small, awkward jokes when the tension was too thick, when your heritage was a searing, hot knife, sharp in your chest.

When you were upset, sometimes you would seek out Hunk. You never revealed your sadness, but you went to see him and speak to him anyway, and it would lessen the insistent gnawing at your soul. His smile was a beacon, his voice a low, comforting rumble. You miss him, you miss him, you miss him.

There are times when you’re flying, reveling in the freedom of it, and when you do a particular twist or pull up just before a collision, you feel empty as you realize Hunk is not there to shriek in panic and then laugh uneasily afterward at the triumphant smirk on your face. There is no “Keith, what the hell! You were totally about to crash into that asteroid of my god” and although you used to find it to be a bit annoying, now you miss it.

One day, you came back to the castle ship in order to discuss matters of war and act as an informant between the Blade and Voltron. He pulled you aside that day, before you left, and handed you a plate of freshly baked cookies. You registered immediately that they were still warm, and your favorite kind. (This is something you’d only mentioned to Hunk in passing. The fact that he’d remembered made you want to cry.)

“Here,” Hunk had said, sending you one of those warm smiles, “for whenever you get homesick.”

Holding back tears, you’d given him a shaky smile of your own, thanked him with a crumbling voice, and he’d ruffled your hair and sent you off.

You still have that plate of cookies, not daring to touch it. If you eat them all, if they ever disappear, you fear that Hunk himself will disappear, too. That you’ll forget what home feels like.

 

**05\. Shiro.**

It is hell without him.

You are so tired of loss. Over time, you became desensitized, your affinity for attachment near non-existent. After your mother and father, you learned to deal with the hollowness, the burning hurt in your chest as you were passed from one family to the next.

Then Shiro forced his way in. He broke you down, he made you smile, he gave you hope.

At first, you attempted to force him back out. But the first and only day he saw you cry, and he spoke softly and kindly to you and told you, "you don’t have to be alone anymore," you knew you wouldn’t be able to let him go.

You were young then, about twelve, and after that, you were attached to Shiro at the hip. He was the older brother you’d always yearned for, someone to take you to the zoo, to the park, someone to teach you how to fly. Someone to help you re-learn, step by step, the different ways love could manifest itself; in a plate of freshly baked cookies, in a softly sung song, in a meadow of flowers, in comfortably shared silence, in laughter and a hand to a shoulder and a gentle voice and soft skin and a blue-eyed smile—

You miss him now, when you look out upon the stars and remember the way he taught you all the constellations. You miss the way he smiled at you and said "great work, kid" when the scores for your very first flight simulation came out and you hit number one on the list.

You miss his strength, his unswerving loyalty, that perseverance you had admired since you were a child and tried to emulate in your every breath.

Your heart aches to see your best friend, your brother who has suffered so much and is still standing, who still radiates hope despite the bags under his eyes. More than anything, you wish you could hear a single word of advice from him. Because you have no clue what you’re doing, and you don’t know how to stop yourself.

It is hell without him, and you think about this often, because he was the first person in your life who showed you that the world didn’t have to be hell.

 

**06\. Lance.**

Love.

It is your least favorite word. For so long, it has been blood; bitter on your tongue, salt and copper. It fumbles when it falls from your lips, so you keep the word sucked in, keep it folded in the dusted pages of your mind, keep it hidden.

Love.

It is your least favorite word. It is pulled out of you by blue eyes.

Love.

It is a touch to the shoulder. It is a quiet moment of vulnerability he didn’t dare to show anybody else and you think about that so much, think about how he came to you, only to you—

Love.

It burns hot and cold, some balance between fire and water that has you disoriented. Now, you ache for balance, for stability, for the warmth that is only in him.

Love.

It is your least favorite word. It is his favorite word.

Love.

You miss him. You miss him. You miss him.

There is not a night you do not think of him. Not a moment where you don’t imagine his cerulean laughter, bask in the echo of his enthusiasm. Every time you launch yourself into a mission, you can’t help but feel the absence of his excitement, of his whoops and hollers of joy or his level-headed words. His kindness. His passion. His everything.

Love.

It is why you left. It is fear and it is the hope and knowledge that he will do better than you can, he will be better than you can.

Love.

It is the knowledge that he deserves to be where he is. That he is valuable, is important. It is the knowledge that to you, he is the entire universe and god you don’t know how to deal with that. You are so scared.

Love.

It is the way you clutch onto a pillow at night and pretend you’re holding him.

Love.

It is the way just hearing his voice over the comms once in a battle makes you want to cry—

Love, love, love—

There is a knock on your door then. Startled, you rise from your bed and answer. It is Kolivan, his grim face never portraying emotion. “Team Voltron wishes to speak with you.”

Your heart quickens and you nod, following Kolivan briskly down the hall. When you reach the expansive screen, it is not the entire team, as Kolivan had made it seem.

It is Lance. Only Lance.

He looks so tired.

“Keith.”

You feel like you’re being eaten alive, and you step forward, your voice trembling. “Lance,” you reply, feeling your hands bristle with wind. “Is everyone okay? What’s going on?”

Lance’s eyes fall on Kolivan then. “Can we talk alone?”

The general looks wary, his eyes narrowed. “What must you discuss that cannot be said in front of me?”

Lance rubs a hand down his face, letting out a sigh that sings of tiredness. “Fine,” he says, “it’s not gonna interest you though, but whatever.” Then those eyes fall on you again. They are beautiful, and they are indecipherable, for the first time in so long. “Keith.”

You swallow again, waiting for some inevitable let-down, a rejection you’d thought you were distancing yourself from—

“Matt told us.”

Oh.

Suddenly, you ache for flight. Every instinct in you is screaming run away, but you remain, held there by the intensity of his gaze and by your desperate, burning need to just see him.

“Told you what?”

“Keith.” There is an exasperation there that burns you. “What you—what you did. What you almost did.”

“Lance…I had to—”

“No, no, we’re not doing this here, not like this.” Lance gives you a look you don’t entirely understand. You know part of it, at least, is gentility. “Keith, I—I’m upset with you, and…but it’s not…” He falls silent for a moment, and then, “Can you just come home? Just come visit or something so we can all talk? Please?”

You turn to Kolivan then, not sure what kind of answer you want to hear. He sighs. “Very well,” he says, “but be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.”

“I’ll be ready.”

You hear a few buttons chiming, and then Lance gives you a shaky smile. “There’s our coordinates,” he said. “Come find us, okay?”

Then he disappears, and your emptiness doubles with the sudden loss.

 

***

 

When you arrive, Lance is the only one to greet you. This surprises you, and terrifies you, but there’s nothing you can do about it. You swallow your fear, curling your fingers into fists to stop the tremble.

“Lance…” you begin, guilt swirling hot and thick in your stomach. I’m upset with you, he’d said. Those words dismantle you; you value Lance’s approval and respect more than anything, and to be dull in his eyes is one of your biggest fears. “I…I’m so sorry…”

He does not do what you expect.

Lance surges forward, takes your face in both hands, and kisses you.

At first, you are still, stiff with complete and utter shock. But eventually, your brain catches up with your heart, and your eyes flutter closed. The warmth of him envelopes you and you return the kiss, the shaking, terrible, wonderful feeling of home in Lance’s every breath.

When you pull apart, you are wide-eyed and breathless, and he leans his forehead against yours. You realize then that there are tears streaming down his cheeks, and you tentatively reach up to brush them away with the pad of your thumb.

“Don’t you dare, ever,” he whispers, arms snaking around your waist, holding you as close as possible. “Don’t leave me, Keith, please don’t leave me.”

Your heart is a cataclysm, a disorienting mixture of love and guilt and shame and happiness and home home home, you’re home— “I won’t,” you say, “I…I’m so sorry, Lance. I thought—I thought it was the only way.”

“You’re so important to us, Keith,” Lance implores, opening his eyes, pulling back to look at you. “Voltron can’t survive without you, whether or not you’re in a lion at the time, we can’t survive without you. No matter how far away we are. Because—because we would fall apart—I would fall apart if you ever left me.”

He kisses you again, so soft and gentle and full of love. “You have to promise me you won’t do anything like that again,” he says, “okay? Not now. You have people you’d be leaving behind, Keith. You have to think of us.”

I was, you thought to yourself, I wanted you to live. But you don’t say this now. That moment has passed, and there is a present and a future now that tastes sweeter than the dark, burning fire of self-sacrifice. “I promise,” you say, and you mean it. The relief in his eyes is so bright and beautiful. “It was selfish of me, and I—I just wanted you guys to be safe. But I won’t do something like that again, Lance, I promise.”

“Thank you.” And he kisses your forehead, lips soft against your skin.

Just then, you feel a different, yet familiar hand on your shoulder. You turn around to see Hunk has joined you, and as soon as you see him, you fall into his embrace, because god, you missed Hunk’s hugs. “Hey, buddy,” he says, nuzzling you a bit, “I’m so glad you’re here with us. You know that, right?”

You feel something warm and wet trailing down your cheek, but it is not out of pain. It is an unmistakable, bursting feeling in your chest that brings out the water in you. It is a release, years of pain sliding down your cheeks and being dashed away in the glow and warmth of your friends’ eyes.

“Yeah,” you sniffle. And then there are more arms around you and—hey, when did everybody get here?

“Keith.” That’s Allura, the beautiful lilt of her voice soothing and sure. “You terrified us. We don’t ever want to lose you.”

“Yeah,” and that’s Katie, her small arms around your waist. “You absolute asshole. Don’t leave. I already missed you so much.” 

“We’re so glad you’re safe, my boy.” Coran presses a fatherly kiss to your hair, and it’s such an unexpected gesture your chest sparks with something bright and beautiful you couldn’t comprehend if you tried.

“And we’re so glad you’re home.” Finally, Shiro, and it seems the gang’s all here now. The emptiness that was eating you alive is filling, filling, filling with your least favorite word—

Love. Family. Friendship. Your least favorite words are big and bright and incredibly imperative to your vocabulary. 

They release you all after a while, letting you have space to breathe. The only one who holds on still is Lance; it seems he is so terrified to let you go, too overcome with the relief of having you here that he does not dare to pull away. “Keith,” he says, kissing your shoulder, nuzzling your neck, “Keith, please come home. Stay with us.”

And you realize then that none of this was ever ephemeral. Yes, it is fragile, it is a beating, bloody, breathing, living thing, but it is not transient. It is not fleeting.

This is permanent. This love is permanent.

That’s what home is. Home is something permanent.

Your eyes water, and you turn to look at all of them. Lance’s warmth surrounds you and your friends all smile at you—your family smiles at you—and your answer comes, quick and steady and sure.

“Okay,” you whisper. “I’ll come home.”

(Love is no longer your least favorite word.)


End file.
